City life, plain onstage

Skatepark

Mette Ingvartsen April 10–11, 2026

Dansens Hus, Stockholm

Photo: Bea Borgers

Earlier this year, filmmaker Brett Novak released The Shape of Paris, a nine-minute video featuring Andy Anderson skateboarding through the French capital. Sharply edited and technically polished, it immerses viewers within the physics, rhythms, and sounds of a distinctly urban pastime and sport, helping those who’ve never set foot on a skateboard get some sense of what expertly piloting one feels like.

Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen might also have aimed for verisimilitude with Skatepark, presented almost continuously throughout Europe and North America since its April 2023 premiere at Le Cndc (Centre National de Danse Contemporaine) in Angers. The work is obviously well-researched and, per Ingvartsen’s own explanation, informed by memories of rollerskating during her teenage years. Its set design, by Pierre Jambé of Antidote, is elaborate and surely expensive. Many skaters would be thrilled to have such a finely built setup of ramps and quarterpipes in their own neighborhoods. Minna Tiikkainen’s lighting scheme paints each scene in a different way, sometimes making Skatepark look like a stage play for young audiences, other times going for something more abstract or expressive. The show is easy enough to look at, and fun enough to watch, throughout its 80-minute runtime.

How novel and rich you find Skatepark might depend on how much time you’ve spent on the streets of a city where skaters are prevalent. Besides some of the show’s more theatrically presented, final few scenes, Skatepark is no more — and no less — than one can probably observe during a warm weekend at Highvalley Skateworld south of Stockholm, and its component sections could be presented in almost any alternative sequence without substantially altering its character. Performance is a time-based art form, yet Skatepark is more like an exhibition: a set of images and moods temporarily on view. The balaclavas and other masks some wear at the outset, and again at the end, do little beyond indicate that “This is a show.”

Skatepark’s mostly absent transitions don’t rebut that critique. What comes next rarely seems to contrast, develop, or extend what came before. It’s often just continuing action set to a different, still repetitive song — maybe EDM, maybe lite punk, maybe pop rock with French lyrics. An afternoon on Venice Beach needs no grand plan. One might argue a ticketed performance should offer a bit more shape and thrust. Skatepark too often seems satisfied with its premise alone.

Photo: Pierre Gondard

Representation matters, of course, and most of Skatepark’s Stockholm audience seemed to enjoy it very much. It is certainly rare, outside the holiday season or a student show, to see so many young people in a contemporary dance venue. Many of them brought their own skateboards and practiced their ollies outside afterward.

Ingvartsen and her collaborators worked on Skatepark for several years and, as I understand it, each stop on its lengthy tour features locally based practitioners who augment the cast and help presenters engage the local scene. I have no doubt the long process of creating Skatepark was meaningful for all involved.

To quote Ingvartsen, from an interview about the project:

The beginning of the creation took place at Poppy’s [cast member Mary-Isabelle Laroche’s] skatepark, a place she courageously runs by herself in an old industrial building in Erembodegem just outside of Brussels. It felt like a ‘home’ for the piece, a place where we felt comfortable working and where we developed most of our material.… For me, the creation really started the moment I went out to the skatepark to find the skaters, and took off when I began testing concrete ideas I’d gotten from observing this public space.

To be clear: All of that sounds great and worthy of support. By no measure is Skatepark a failure. But while it has found considerable success — and funding — bringing skateboarding into dance festivals and venues, I might rather watch neighborhood kids do whatever they want for 80 minutes on some ramps and rails, for free.

Zachary Whittenburg 

Zachary Whittenburg has been a journalist, administrator, photographer, and grantmaker in arts and culture since 2008. A regular contributor to Dance Magazine and former dance editor at Time Out Chicago magazine, he has written for numerous additional publications including Critical Correspondence, Critical Read, Dance International, Flavorwire, Pointe, and Total Theatre UK.